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Home (Away-from-Home) for the Holidays
December 20th, 2010 | 
Author: By Kristi, Contributor, Live and Love…Out Loud (@TweetingMama)
I ran into the house, hid under the covers and cried big fat baby tears. I was 28 years old and I was crying for my mommy.
One divorce, 3 out-of-state moves and 8 long years have passed since my first Christmas away from home, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
My husband (at the time) and I had just left my life-long home in sunny Hawaii and moved to bitter-cold-during-the-winter North Carolina with our 2 children. I was raised in a tight-knit family that valued tradition, so leaving home was extremely difficult for me. While I knew that those first few holidays away from home would be emotionally difficult, nothing could have prepared me for the disaster that was Christmas, 2002.
My husband’s brother lived a few minutes away from our new home in Fayetteville with his wife and teenage daughter. Having family close by I had hoped that we could somehow make our new home away-from-home a wonderful one. That we could create new traditions and celebrate the holidays together like families should.
What I’d hoped would be a great first Christmas away from home was in fact one of the saddest holidays of my life. My sister-in-law went out of her way to be rude and unwelcoming. She called me “fatty” all.night.long. (Never mind that I was 37-weeks pregnant, hormonally out-of-whack and extremely homesick.) She was incredibly stand-offish and threw darts at me with her eyes the entire night. She even tried to kill me and my children with her Christmas dinner.
The turkey was dry. There was no gravy in sight. The stuffing was a gooey mess. And the cornbread? Well, the cornbread scratched my throat. FYI: Cornbread should never – I repeat, never – scratch your throat. Especially on Christmas.
Two long hours and 1 deadly meal later, we arrived at home and I couldn’t get out of the car soon enough. I ran into the house, hid under the covers and cried big fat baby tears. I’m pretty sure I even cried for my Mommy. I couldn’t believe that I’d traded a lifetime of Christmases with a family that I loved for a life sentence in Christmas Hell where they served dry turkey and scratchy cornbread.
I missed Auntie Bernie’s gravy, Auntie Violet’s homemade stuffing and my Mom’s Portuguese sweet rolls. I missed the house full of laughing, squealing children. I missed all of these things, but most of all, I missed that warm feeling you get from being around the people who know you best and love you still. I’d left it all behind and more than anything, I wanted to go back.
So I cried. And cried.
Until my children climbed into bed with me, pulled the covers back and put their arms around me. The sadness began to melt away and in that moment, I had everything I’d been missing and more. Our family has changed and grown over the years, we’ve created new Christmas traditions of our own and we continue to celebrate together. Just us. In our home away-from-home.
No more tears. And no more scratchy cornbread.
Kristi’s navigating a sea of teenage hormones, dirty diapers and a family with ever-changing needs while blogging about it all at Live and Love…Out Loud.
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….and you kept on going!! it takes a strong woman to do just that
as painful as that had to been, as they say…what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger! and you are living proof of that! I am happy to call you my friend
may all your Christmases be better and full of blessings.
GrammyMouseTails ~Faythe´s last blog ..Merry Christmas 2010
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